Post 48/2023. Sister-in-law Doris recently came up with a joke that flips the frenetic dash of shopping, holiday preparations, yearend planning. “‘It won’t be long now,’ said the monkey when it lost its tail in the lawnmower.” Good time to pause and immerse oneself in a book or two. Hot chocolate alongside.

Set in Scotland

In The Christmas Bookshop, Jenny Colgan wraps a fetching story set in Edinburgh around facing family differences, job loss, saving a failing bookshop, discounting fame, finding a way to relate to children, secrets, romance, Christmas spirit., and more. Easy reading. Punchy. Atmospheric. Nice touch of exaggeration. I enjoyed it. Worth checking out at your library.

Set in Ukraine

Victoria Belim was born in Ukraine, moved with her parents to the US, studied political science. She works in Brussels. For lengthy periods in 2014 and 2015 she returned to Ukraine to spend time with her grandmother and other relatives to do family research.

The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story, opens the window to the country’s past, its present precariousness, family secrets, suffering and survival, human values. Her grandmother, Valentina, has Victoria help weed the garden, whitewash the trees in the cherry orchard, plant potatoes and tomatoes, but is not too keen at first to talk about the past.

In chapter 8, Belim writes: “The past was ready to reveal its legacy at the most unexpected moments, be it through embroidery patterns or old trees. To find what you wanted, you needed to know how to look at things. I was slowly learning to see. While sometimes I felt like a stranger in this land, I was also growing aware of its inexorable pull on me. Seeing Ukraine as if for the first time was as captivating as learning about my family history.”

The book breathes life into how change and changelessness, love and conflict, human and political elements affect an extended family’s life and those around them. It’s a heartwarming story, not just revealing but reveling in the wonderfully personal and human aspects of what makes a family tick or not.

In the Prologue, Belim notes, “My portrait of Ukraine is personal, tracing my own story against the tidal wave of Ukrainian history. At the same time the book reveals the complicated nature of Ukrainian identify and the country’s difficult relations with its Soviet past. As such, The Rooster House explains the context in which the current war takes place.”

A few photos of the week

It won’t be long now until we see the shortest day of the year (Thursday, December 21, 2023, 10:27 PM, Eastern Time). Enjoy, past, present, future. Light a candle.

-John